i am looking now a bizarre Oct 98 internal USDA publication describing a james bond-type US effort to control media should the long-anticipated first case of BSE in the US be admitted. 'Players' on the 27 member BSE Response Team are to be flown in from all over the country to a BSE Headquarters 'situation room' apparently an underground bunker in Riverdale, Maryland under the command of the Assistant Secretary of Marketing. Authentic press releases are already prepared and ready to go out after a few specifics have been filled in. They are spelled out in a separate document, the BSE Red Book, aka BSE Emergency Disease Guidelines. Aphis' National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) activates team assembly. From the time a bovine brain sample is submitted, it takes 14-18 days to confirm a diagnosis of BSE. In the first 10-13 days, NVSL have enough information to determine the need for additional tests. If a provisional BSE diagnosis is made, the sample is 'hand-carried' (are they going to tell the airline and customs?) to the Central Veterinary Laboratory in England for confirmation, where they are expecting a 24 to 96 hour turn-around. I guess that means we can get the white tiger brain analyzed by Friday despite the 22 year delay to date. Maybe we could throw in a few cougar brains from NE Colorado too. A Team Member is designated to silently monitor this listserve and www.mad-cow.org (among others) -- for what, it doesn't say. The Freedom of Information Act request from the East Coast consumer group turned up numerous top-secret USDA downloads from that site and Dealler's. After 24 hours of secret briefings for 'select industry and trading partners' (to allow them to take positions on the commodities markets opposite the 'non-select' industry and trading partners?), a press conference will be held the next day. There are plans to trace the cow, its lineage, its herdmates, the renderer, traceout of product, buyout of herd, farm of origin, to get the state involved to quarantine the herd (pre-arranged for all 50 states), expectations for trade bans, notification of OIE within 24 hours, media 800 numbers, spokespersons and backups, notify CDC, FDA, NIH, and many other commendable activities. The Flow Chart is a sight to behold, I will try to scan it in tomorrow. In short, that cow is going to be toast by the time the public first hears about it. The Plan does not speak to the scenario in which the CVL says, yes, this is bovine spongiform encephalopathy all right but it is one of your strains, not ours. Invoking their Absence of Evidence is Evidence of Absence principle, there may be no perceived need for public disclosure in this case. USDA is caught completely unprepared if BSE first turns up in a US zoo animal. These animals could easily be diagnosed outside the "system" and be the subject of a publicity-seeking lab press release. I think this is a more likely scenario because the US has likely imported many thousands of zoo animals with advanced infections from Britain and France and there has been zero monitoring. Unlike with downer cows, anyone with the right colleagues can get ahold of a fallen zoo animal. Zoo animals enter the food chain in some cases after being rendered. Another scenario would be some stock market speculator obtaining the Red Book and issuing a flurry of bogus but authentic-looking press releases that included bogus 800 and hacked USDA web links. The press here is so lazy and so accustomed to putting out public relation handouts as news that the objectives would be accomplished for a few hour (or days, depending on the Response Team's paralysis vis-a-vis off-flow chart events). Some people think a practise run for this happened in the Indiana case a year or two back. The first case of nvCJD in an American will also be a public relations fiasco. In the dim bulb of the public mind, any American with mad cow disease would have gotten it from eating meat here. USDA has no way to prove that the victim acquired it on a three week trip to England in 1987. This will sound lame even to the press. All CJD is synonymous with mad cow disease in the public perception; the more often the different kinds are explained, the more their suspicions are aroused. The first case of nvCJD in an American will simply validate what they already know and just be viewed as an overdue admission from the government. tom

Dr. Pringle or Anyone, why is it, in the U.S.'s B.S.E. Response Plan, the U.S.D.A. refers to it as a FOREIGN ANIMAL DISEASE. With the feeding and rendering practices of the U.S. over the years, scrapie in the U.S. for years, (it was proven in the defense of Oprah Winfrey trial that neurologically ill cattle went to the renderers showed pictures of sheep heads in 55 gallon drums, along with all kind of road-kill at the rendering plants.) Why do they call this a Foreign Disease, or a U.K. disease??? Under the circumstances, could it not happen here, because of OUR OWN STUPIDITY??? I also find it odd, that the letters, of the announcement of the first case of BSE, are already drafted and ready to go, for a disease, they say, can't happen here, because of the EXTENSIVE B.S.E. program that has been in place for years. Under the present circumstances, out of the 900 MILLION cattle raised since 1990, and the examination of ONLY 7,535 brains since 1990, It would have to be a FREAK ACCIDENT, for the U.S. to ever find a case of B.S.E. I believe, this could be a WORLD PROBLEM, AND COULD HAPPEN ANYWHERE, where the feeding and rendering practices were that of the U.K. or U.S.////// Terry S. Singeltary Sr. Bacliff, Texas, U.S.A.

I would like to post the following response from one of my colleagues to one of the recent posts on this list: "The updated BSE Response Plan has been posted on the APHIS website for months. It was also distributed to the contact list which includes other government agencies, industry and consumer groups. I would hardly call it an internal document. I will only address one of the many misinterpretations in Tom Pringle's posting: In the event of a BSE case, the person assigned to monitoring the APHIS BSE website will keep this site up to date on an almost hourly basis, there is no intention of monitoring the sites of others. If anyone has questions about the document I can be reached as follows: Linda A. Detwiler Senior Staff Veterinarian USDA, APHIS, Veterinary Services 609-259-5825" Regards, Nora Wineland, DVM, MS NAHMS Program Leader Centers for Epidemiology and Animal Health USDA-APHIS-VS

* Re: hunkering down in the APHIS BSE Situation Room

(62 lines) From: tom Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 21:21:34 -0800

Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 21:21:34 -0800Reply-To: BSE-LSender: BSE-LFrom: tom Subject: Re: hunkering down in the APHIS BSE Situation RoomIn-Reply-To: >"The updated BSE Response Plan has been posted on the APHIS website for months. It was also distributed to the contact list which includes other government agencies, industry and consumer groups. I would hardly call it an internal document. I will only address one of the many misinterpretations in Tom Pringle's posting: In the event of a BSE case, the person assigned to monitoring the APHIS BSE website will keep this site up to date on an almost hourly basis, there is no intention of monitoring the sites of others. If anyone has questions about the document I can be reached as follows: > >Linda A. Detwiler >Senior Staff Veterinarian >USDA, APHIS, Veterinary Services >609-259-5825" > Yes, I had four questions: 1. Could you please post on this listserve or the APHIS site the contact list of industry and consumer groups? My concern is that these are not bona fide consumer groups but simply industry-funded shells. It is important as a tax-supported public agency for USDA to promote a level informational playing field. 2. How do I go about getting my name added to this contact list to receive future messages? 3. Could you please post here a list of the "select industry and trading partners" that get the one-day advance warning that mad cow disease has been confirmed in the US? There are many stakeholders in this issue including public health and consumer interests -- I am hoping this list will demonstrate balance. Please add my stockbroker to this list. 4. Could you please post here copies of the press releases that have been made up in advance of this hypothetical event? The facts are not in, how it is possible to issue reassurances to the consumer already? Maybe the actual event won't be all that reassuring. Thanks, Tom

>> IF we look at the original U.S. Emergency Bovine Spongiform > Encephalopathy Response Plan Summary i posted in 1999,> it states very clearly;>>> If additional tests do suggest a presumptive diagnosis of BSE, an NVSL>> pathologist will hand carry the sample to the United Kingdom for>> confirmation. It is at this critical point, when NVSL suggests a>> diagnosis of BSE and is preparing to send the sample to the United>> Kingdom, that this BSE Response Plan is initiated. The Plan begins the>> preliminary notification from NVSL to APHIS... >>>> snip...end>> BUT this administration has clearly shown they have no rules and> regulations, they change them with the wind to suit there needs$>> for full text,>> ORIGINAL POSTING;>> Subject: U.S. Emergency Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Response Plan> Summary> Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 18:25:12 -0500> From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."> Reply-To: BSE-L> To: BSE-L>> IT'S IN THE ARCHIVES at BSE-L...TSS>> Terry S. Singeltary Sr. wrote:>> ##################### Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy > #####################>> Release No. 0508.04>> Statement by John Clifford, Deputy Administrator- Animal & Plant > Health Inspection Service>> November 23, 2004>>> "The USDA National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) in Ames, > Iowa, has determined that the inconclusive screening test sample > reported on Nov. 18 has tested negative for BSE upon confirmatory > testing.> "The Nov. 18 sample is the first that has tested inconclusive under an > APHIS protocol announced in August that calls for public reporting of > screening results only after two reactive screens. NVSL used the > immunohistochemistry (IHC) test, an internationally-recognized gold > standard test for BSE, and received a negative result on Nov. 22. > Because the Nov. 18 screening test results were reactive in both the > first and second screens, NVSL scientists made the recommendation to > run the IHC test a second time. On Nov. 23 they reported the second > IHC test was negative. Negative results from both IHC tests makes us > confident that the animal in question is indeed negative for BSE.>> "APHIS began an enhanced surveillance program on June 1 and to date > has tested over 121,000 samples for BSE. Screening tests are designed > to be extremely sensitive and false positives are not unexpected. > APHIS has reported three inconclusives including the Nov. 18 sample > and all have tested negative on confirmatory testing.">>> #>>> USDA News> oc.news@usda.gov> 202 720-4623